Just one week on from the Monegasque taking pole position for the United States Grand Prix, Leclerc feels his Italian squad is more on the back foot in Mexico City.
He and team-mate Carlos Sainz are battling to extract enough pace from the car over a single lap, with their task made all the more difficult by the aggressive characteristics of the available soft tyre.
So, despite Leclerc ending second free practice on Friday third-quickest, just 0.266 seconds behind pace-setting Max Verstappen, he offered a downbeat assessment of where things were at.
“We've still got a lot of work to do, because the McLaren seems to be extremely strong,” said Leclerc.
“Obviously, the Red Bull and Max [Verstappen] seem to be very, very strong. Mercedes is a bit more difficult to read into for now, but focusing on ourselves, we know what are the areas we need to work on and hopefully that will help us to do a step forward.”
Source: Autosport